I like this passage from tango poet Enrique Cadícamo's biography of Juan Carlos Cobian because it reveals something, first, about the international tango scene of the time and, second, about the creative process that went on between composer and lyricist. Translation mine; if any errors, mine too...
[Illustration: Cobián & Cadícamo by H. Sábat. Clarín, Revista Viva, 1996]
In March of the same year (1927), drawn by the tremendous spread of tango in Europe by Pizarro, Bianco, Spaventa, Gardel, and the Irusta-Fugazot-Demare trio, I sailed on the luxurious packet ship Conte Rosso with the goal of checking up in my author’s rights. At that time the author was something like the electric company. He had to go in person to the European “Societies” and the various recording companies, bill in hand. Cobian accompanied me to the pier and as we said our goodbyes he gave me a signed authorization enabling me to find out how much money was due him from the European recording companies.
Cobian, fronting a magnificent band consisting of Luis Petrucelli, Ciriaco Ortiz, Elvino Vardaro, Humberto Costanzo, Fausto Fronteras, Luis Minervini, and as singer the unforgettable Francisco Fiorentino, started to record a series of tangos for the Victor label among which included: “El único lunar,” “Ladrón,” “Rey de copas,” “Me querés,” “Vení, vení,” “Lamento pampeano” and others.
Months later and a few days after my return to Buenos Aires, I invited Cobian to share a meal. The first thing he asked me is about the payment of my royalties in Europe. Upon informing him that I’d realized a certain amount of pesetas in Spain and some francs from the S.A.C.E.M organization in Paris, to which after a swift literary examination, they had accepted me as a member, he celebrated this happily, toasting me with his glass of wine.
With respect to the charge he had given me of his royalties, I was sorry to tell him that i hadn’t found the slightest indication in his favor, because his tangos were unknown in Europe.
Far from causing him any displeasure, he took this news lightly, recounting to me very enthusiastically between mouthfuls of food and swigs of wine that he had been appointed musical advisor to the “Ricordi” publishing house, at that time located on the 500 block of calle San Martín, which would publish his tangos for distribution in Europe from now on.
I gave him back that signed authorization he had given me upon my departure, telling him to keep it for the future.
One afternoon he called me on the phone, asking that I come see him at the publisher’s. The purpose was our first collaboration. He had finished a piece and by making me listen to it two or three times, I was to receive a “monster,” a term which in the composers’ lexicon is not taken lightly.
That monster slept for a couple of months in my to-do list. I lived in a fifth-floor apartment on the 300 block of Talcahuano. Since an apartment on the second floor was unoccupied, and knowing that Cobian wanted to move, I called for him to see it. The apartment was rented for him immediately and in a few days he became my neighbor. We communicated from balcony to balcony, making our plans for the evening, even though I was tied up with writing some sketches for a review at the Teatro “Astral” headed by Segundo Pomar. Ours was a bohemia of silk shirts and gomina (hair gel). Cobian and I may have been among the first sin sombreristas (bareheaded men) of Buenos Aires. I said to him many times: “They’re going to take us for Legionnaires....”
At that time the young members of the political group called “Legionnaires” were easily identified in the streets because they went without hats.
One day I went to the finished lyrics of that tango that he’d made me listen to months before at "Ricordi" and whose melody I remembered perfectly on account of having myself played it an infinite number of times, with good intention but little technique, on the family piano of our house in Flores with the sole intention of not forgetting it.
That way it happened that my efforts would bear fruit at the same time that the music was calling for it. It was a formula that worked perfectly for collaboration. I am of the opinion that every author of lyrics ought to know how, although not necessarily perfectly, to play an instrument with the end of recalling the melody at the moment in which he writes the verses.
Now to the publishing house on San Martín where Cobian worked as musical advisor I sent the lyrics, which I had entitled, "La casita de mis viejos.” [Hear Cobian play "La casita de los viejos"],
Cobián read the title and after a fleeting look, sat down at the piano in order to compare very slowly the notes with the syllables, finding them al pelo (“just right”) for the melody.
After turning to it again to take in its content more carefully, he asked me if I had wished to sketch his biography, now that fifteen years had passed since he had left la casita de sus viejos without ever having returned.
I responded jovially, like they say at the beginning of a film, “Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.”
But, speaking of coincidences, I sat down at the piano, asking that he not look at my hands, while telling him that in the second part of the piece one found a strange similarity with another tune that I then played for my surprised friend. What I played was precisely that second part of his tango, which I knew how to play from memory, something which Cobián would never have guessed I could do.
On finishing the last measure I asked him seriously if that seemed to be his tango or not. Somewhat confused, without knowing how to respond, he kept smiling but didn't answer. On demanding anew whether he found the same similarity that I had, he responded that now, he was beginning to believe that he had taken some musical phrases from another composer without noticing.
“That was what I wanted to know...” I responded laughing, “whether I were or were not capable of playing a melody written by you... Of course it’s yours...”
At that, Cobian started to tell me off in a friendly way, saying: “Well then, no one is in their place... You write lyrics and you want to play the piano... then drop the poetry and study with ‘Czerny,’ who has a very interesting children’s course...” he concluded.
“I’ll do it, but only if you promise to drop music and study the present participle instead....” I shot back, now making a joke of his didactic recommendations.
Days later, in another meeting, he asked me to adapt the lyrics of his first tangos that “Breyer” had transferred to “Ricordi” and had in its time published: “A pan y agua,” “Pico de oro,” “Shusheta,” “Mosca muerta” and various other compositions, given that he had discovered in me a collaborator who possessed the dual skill of learning the music before adapting the verses to it.
Comments